Super Cat
The original Don Dadda Super Cat, came to prominence during the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the beginning of his career, he also appeared as ‘Wild Apache’ and when started working with Early B his career took off. In 1985 he put out his debut set Si Boops Deh!. He started his own Wild Apache Productions label on which he released the albums Sweets for My Sweet and Cabin Stabbin with Nicodemus & Junior Demus. He moved to the US and signed a contract with Columbia Records, releasing one of the first dancehall albums on a major label, Don Dada. He has worked with several hip-hop and r&b artists and with his unique mix of dancehall, reggae, roots, hip-hop, and r&b he established a name for himself in both the pop scene and the dancehall scene.
Super Cat
The original Don Dadda Super Cat, came to prominence during the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the beginning of his career, he also appeared as ‘Wild Apache’ and when started working with Early B his career took off. In 1985 he put out his debut set Si Boops Deh!. He started his own Wild Apache Productions label on which he released the albums Sweets for My Sweet and Cabin Stabbin with Nicodemus & Junior Demus. He moved to the US and signed a contract with Columbia Records, releasing one of the first dancehall albums on a major label, Don Dada. He has worked with several hip-hop and r&b artists and with his unique mix of dancehall, reggae, roots, hip-hop, and r&b he established a name for himself in both the pop scene and the dancehall scene..
Beth Lesser
During the 1980s, my husband and I traveled frequently to Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, NY from our home in Toronto, Canada to follow the changing reggae scene. In that period reggae was changing fast, moving from the heavy roots sound of suffering and redemption to the lighter, faster, digitized sound of modern dancehall.
My husband and I saw it happen. We saw Junjo’s Volcano empire rise meteorically and them crash as his young artists emigrated or met untimely deaths. We witnessed Jah Love’s Brigadier Jerry take over the dancehall scene without ever having recorded a 45 – powered by the new popularity of dance hall cassettes.
We were in Waterhouse when King Jammy unleashed his Sleng Teng rhythm to an analog world and, one by one, producers dropped their previously recorded rhythms and started building again from scratch using programmable keyboards and drum machines. We were in Jammy’s yard while he cut the dubplates for the Clash of the Century, the event that brought dancehall culture to the larger Jamaican audience.
Over those years, I collected an archive of material that I would like to make available to the public – to present and future reggae scholars and fans.
All images © 1982-1988 Beth Lesser
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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